Health chief's dog-eat-dog struggle

The Government's top adviser on surgery admitted today that NHS hospitals are locked in a "dog-eat-dog" fight over patients.

Professor Sir Ara Darzi, of Imperial College and St Mary's Hospital, spoke out to try to calm the furore over the Government's use of private hospitals to cut waiting lists.

Evening Standard highlighted yesterday how Ravenscourt Park, an NHS hospital in west London, had padlocked the doors of a ward because it does not have enough patients - partly because they are being sent in their thousands to private hospitals in a government move to cut waiting lists.

Ravenscourt Park has space for an extra 5,000 hip and knee surgery patients this year. Yet since May 9,000 people across the country have been sent for private surgery. Critics say the situation there is representative of a wider problem, and warn that the policy of sending 10 per cent of patients to private hospitals is unnecessary and harms the NHS. But Sir Ara insists patients must come first, regardless of who provides their care.

He said: "It is a market and that means there is competition. The person that has the advantage then is the consumer, the patient.

"I don't care who manages the unit, I just want to treat my patients."